God's Economy

What would "God's Economy" look like?

Disclaimer: I did not study theology or anything of the sort. I just read it and write it as I feel it. Comments welcome.

"We have replaced God with the "invisible hand" and attributed all that was good and right to the power of the market to make it so."

Being inspired and directed by Jim Wallis' Rediscovering Values

tidbits and snippets... the blue is paraphrased from the book---

Our relationship as Americans with the marketplace is pure idolatry. Wallis uses the example of Moses, and the Golden Calf. "When moses went to the mount, he stayed for a long time, the Israelites got nervous that he would not come back. They began to worship a golden calf and give it credit for having saved them from Egypt... [God and Moses] got angry, but not at the fact that they had built the calf, but that they gave it attributes that only belong to God...Today instead of statues, we have hedge funds, mortgage-backed securities, and 401ks... We place blind faith in the hope that stock indexes will rise and keep climbing. The people who managed these things became the leaders to which we looked, not just for financial leadership, but direction for our entire lives... The market has assumed God-like qualities, all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful, even eternal, unable to be resisted or questioned. There is a difference between performing necessary roles and providing important goods, versus commanding ultimate allegiance.  Today, "those who question the market "god" are called heretics, and lunatics and burned at the stake on conservative radio."

Smith, the famous economist said "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages" However in a previous work he wrote that, "To feel much for others and little for ourselves... that is the perfection of human nature."

No one pays attention to the second part. As responsible citizens of the world, where do we lie on this spectrum? Where should we lie? ...As Christians, where are we expected to stand? The answer: Always with the poor. 

"Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy." prov. 31:9 It does not say to simply help the poor and give them food or a place to stay, it says to speak out for them, to speak out for justice. Friends, rarely do we raise our voices to promote the status quo. Instead, this implies that we should advocate for a system in which they will be poor no more.  That does not imply that everyone will be rich, but that they will have what they need.

Instead we quietly support the status quo, and worship a market system that continues to send more and more people into a state of desperation. The United States is not the only country experiencing a crisis in wealth distribution. We are not an insulated little bubble. Believe it or not, in the USA, if you make a measly $50,000 per year you are still among the richest 1% in the world. Take a deep breath and sit on that for awhile. That should give you some perspective, and we all need a little bit more of that. In the majority of the world, life is raw, and there is no credit insulation for the harshness of poverty. 

Reality: Today there is no corn for tortillas, she can't go to the store and swipe her card and pay for it next month. Today there is no corn = Today there is no food. They go to bed hungry.

In the United States, the richest country in the world, where a whole lot of people will tell you they are Christians...

1 in 5 children, and 43.6 million people live in poverty. 

People live on the same block for years, in the same apartment building, and never share a meal or a conversation with each other. When did American Christians get so lost in the market, and so disconnected from their neighbors?  In Ephesians it says that "we should speak the truth with our neighbor because we are members of one and other." 

If it's out of site, it's out of mind. Tragedies occur all over the world, and we, the wealthiest nation in the world, are the beneficiaries, of slave labor, sex-trafficking, and the halt of subsistence farming. When did they start defining their neighbors as people who live within man-made political borders? When Jesus was asked "who is my neighbor?" Jesus shared the parable of the good Samaritan, he said the neighbor was the Samaritan man who showed mercy to the injured stranger.  

A young, otherwise good man, goes to war to protect his family. He doesn't want them to experience war and its horrors. When did our blood family become more important than the rest of the Lord's children? Jesus said that "anyone who comes to me but refuses to let go of his own father, mother, spouse, children, and even his self can't be my disciple."

So a young person goes to war on enemy soil, obeying the orders of his/her Lieutenant, to protect his/her family. While we at home continue to pump our SUVs full of gasoline complaining about rising gas prices. And making little to no actual adjustments in the way we live. That is insanity people. We are doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. 

Who told him it was enemy soil, and not his neighbor's land? Since when do we obey a chain of command that contradicts the Lord's teachings? And if we don't think that our greedy disgusting consumerism is fueling the conflicts around the world and at home, we are gravely mistaken. 

Recognize that you are incredibly blessed, and with those blessings comes responsibility. The very talented singer/songwriter Brooke Fraser says, "Now that I have seen, I am responsible." That's a cop out. Does that imply that if you have not seen then you are not responsible. But, if you are a Christian, you are responsible not because you have seen, but because you have a divine order to give without receiving, to turn the other cheek, and to serve the poor. Not because you saw how they suffered, and you pity them. But because they are your neighbors, and you are to care for them. We are to love as Jesus loved, He his our master and commander. They are his orders that we obey above all else.

And because we are members of one another

Keep Spreading the Love Around...